Reg
11-24-2006, 09:35 AM
I read this book about 15 years ago. It was very meaningful to me at the time. I wrote out some (a lot) of quotes I felt were significant. Hope they are to you also.
LOVE - 'A Warm & Wonderful Book About The Largest Experience In Life'
by Leo Buscaglia.
You can only give away what you have.
It's a matter of sharing. Whatever I have I can share with you. I don't
lose it because I still have it.
We should all have a tremendous desire to become. If all of life is
directed toward the process of becoming, of growing, of seeing, of
feeling, of touching, of smelling, there won't be a boring second.
We have not sufficiently celebrated the wonderful uniqueness of every
individual.
What is often ignored is the X-factor. Something within the you of
you that is different from every single human being, that will
determine how you will project in this world, how you will see this
world, how you will become a special human being.
Show me your differences so that maybe I can learn from them.
You can only give what you have to give. You are only you - the only
magical combination of forces that will be and ever has been that can
create. You are the best you. You will always be second best anyone else .
Labels are distancing phenomena - stop using them! A loving person
won't stand for it. ... Then this loving person must be one who
recognizes responsibility. There is no greater responsibility in the
world than being a human being, and you'd better believe it.
Then I think this loving individual is a person who is spontaneous. This
is something that I feel really, really strongly about because I think that
we have lost our ability to be spontaneous.
WE are all marking time, and we are all regimented. WE have forgotten
what it is to laugh and to feel good laughing.
If you feel something (hopefully good), let people know that you feel
it. Reach out with your emotions.
I'm for the old-fashioned thing of touching people. ... I hug everybody
- just come close to me, you're more than likely to get hugged,
certainly touched. We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show
emotion. The easiest thing in the world to be is what you are, what you feel.
Don't live in the past. live now. ... Catch the beauty of the moment.
We can't be concerned with dying because we must be too damned busy
living! Let dying take care of itself. And don't ever believe that your
life is ever going to be peaceful - life is not like that.
We're all on a fantastic journey! Change & growth take place when a
person has risked himself and dares to become involved with
experimenting with his own life. Isn't that fantastic? A person has
risked himself and dared to become involved with experimenting with his
own life, trusting himself. This is frightening because you are dealing
with the unknown, and you are shaking complacency.
I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is note hate -
it's apathy.
A loving person recognizes needs, he needs people who care, someone who
cares at least about him, who truly sees & hears him.
It's about time we start listening to each other. We need to be heard.
A man needs a feeling of achievement. We all do. We've got to be able to
be recognized for doing something well. Somebody's got to point it out to
us, Somebody has got to come up occasionally and pat us on the shoulder
& say, "Wow! That's good. I really like that."
It would be a miracle if we could let people know what was right rather
than always pointing out what is wrong.
There are ways to meet needs of society, and still do your own thing.
It's knowing where and when and how. Everybody has his own way and must
be allowed the freedom to pursue it.
Everyone will find his own way if he listens to himself. Don't let
anybody impose their way on you.
Look at every path closely & deliberately. Try it many times if you
think necessary. Then ask yourself & yourself one question. "Does this
path have a heart?"...Does his path have a heart is the only question.
If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use. If
your path is love the goal is unimportant, the process will have
heart. _You_ can only be "real" on your path. The hardest thing in the
world is to be something you're not.
"Here's me. Takes me for what I am with all my frailties, all my
stupidity, and so on. And if you can't, leave me be. (Don't try to change me)
He (man) is still the creator of his own destiny. He can change this
destiny by taking his one decision to change seriously, by fighting his
petty resistance against change and fear, by learning more about his
mind,...by carrying out concrete acts rather than conceptualizing about them.
WE must remind ourselves, however, that no change takes place without
working hard and without getting your hands dirty.
There is no formulae & no books to memorize on becoming. I only know
this: I exist, I am, I am here, I am becoming, I make my life & no one
makes it for me. I must face my own shortcomings, mistakes,
transgressions. No one can suffer my non-being as I do, but tomorrow is
another day, and I must decide to leave my bed and live again. And if I
fail, I don't have the comfort of blaming you or life or God.
"We are all functioning at a small fraction of our capacity to live
fully in its total meaning of loving, caring, creating and
adventuring..." - Herbert Otto
Love is a learned response, a learned emotion. God is love.
If you want to live in love, you must spend as much time as the auto
mechanic or the gourmet in studying love.
In studying love it would be well to consider the following premises:
"One cannot give what he does not possess. To give love you must possess love."
"One cannot know what he does not study. To study love you must live in love"
"One cannot have doubt about that which he wishes to trust. To trust
love you must be convinced of love."
"One cannot admit what he does not yield to, To yield to love you must
be vulnerable to love."
One cannot live what he does not dedicate himself to. To dedicate
yourself to love you must be forever growing in love."
Language is the main means by which we transfer knowledge, attitudes,
prejudices, feelings and those aspects which make personality and
culture unique.
Love As A Learned Phenomenon
It's never too late to learn anything for which you have potential. If
you want to learn to love, then you must start the process of finding
out what it is, what qualities make up a loving person and how these are
developed.
Love, especially, is learned best in wonder, in joy, in peace, in living.
Man Needs To Love And Be Loved
"Scientists are discovering at this very moment that to live as if to
live and love were one is only way of life for human beings, because,
indeed, _this is the way of life which the innate nature of man
demands_." - Ashley Montagu
One can be alone & never feel loneliness and, conversely, one can even
feel lonely even when he is among people. ... Albert Schweitzer stressed
this poignantly in his comment that modern man is so much a part of the
crowd that he is dying of personal loneliness.
He discovers that with each deep relationship he's brought closer to
himself, that others help him to gain personal strength and this
strength, in turn, makes it more possible for him to face his aloneness.
In adulthood, we find that the easiest way of being accepted is to be
like those by whom we wish to be accepted. So we conform.
We need others. WE need others to love and we need to be loved by them.
_There is no doubt that without it er too, like the infant left alone,
would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness & even death._
........continued in part two.........
LOVE - 'A Warm & Wonderful Book About The Largest Experience In Life'
by Leo Buscaglia.
You can only give away what you have.
It's a matter of sharing. Whatever I have I can share with you. I don't
lose it because I still have it.
We should all have a tremendous desire to become. If all of life is
directed toward the process of becoming, of growing, of seeing, of
feeling, of touching, of smelling, there won't be a boring second.
We have not sufficiently celebrated the wonderful uniqueness of every
individual.
What is often ignored is the X-factor. Something within the you of
you that is different from every single human being, that will
determine how you will project in this world, how you will see this
world, how you will become a special human being.
Show me your differences so that maybe I can learn from them.
You can only give what you have to give. You are only you - the only
magical combination of forces that will be and ever has been that can
create. You are the best you. You will always be second best anyone else .
Labels are distancing phenomena - stop using them! A loving person
won't stand for it. ... Then this loving person must be one who
recognizes responsibility. There is no greater responsibility in the
world than being a human being, and you'd better believe it.
Then I think this loving individual is a person who is spontaneous. This
is something that I feel really, really strongly about because I think that
we have lost our ability to be spontaneous.
WE are all marking time, and we are all regimented. WE have forgotten
what it is to laugh and to feel good laughing.
If you feel something (hopefully good), let people know that you feel
it. Reach out with your emotions.
I'm for the old-fashioned thing of touching people. ... I hug everybody
- just come close to me, you're more than likely to get hugged,
certainly touched. We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show
emotion. The easiest thing in the world to be is what you are, what you feel.
Don't live in the past. live now. ... Catch the beauty of the moment.
We can't be concerned with dying because we must be too damned busy
living! Let dying take care of itself. And don't ever believe that your
life is ever going to be peaceful - life is not like that.
We're all on a fantastic journey! Change & growth take place when a
person has risked himself and dares to become involved with
experimenting with his own life. Isn't that fantastic? A person has
risked himself and dared to become involved with experimenting with his
own life, trusting himself. This is frightening because you are dealing
with the unknown, and you are shaking complacency.
I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is note hate -
it's apathy.
A loving person recognizes needs, he needs people who care, someone who
cares at least about him, who truly sees & hears him.
It's about time we start listening to each other. We need to be heard.
A man needs a feeling of achievement. We all do. We've got to be able to
be recognized for doing something well. Somebody's got to point it out to
us, Somebody has got to come up occasionally and pat us on the shoulder
& say, "Wow! That's good. I really like that."
It would be a miracle if we could let people know what was right rather
than always pointing out what is wrong.
There are ways to meet needs of society, and still do your own thing.
It's knowing where and when and how. Everybody has his own way and must
be allowed the freedom to pursue it.
Everyone will find his own way if he listens to himself. Don't let
anybody impose their way on you.
Look at every path closely & deliberately. Try it many times if you
think necessary. Then ask yourself & yourself one question. "Does this
path have a heart?"...Does his path have a heart is the only question.
If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use. If
your path is love the goal is unimportant, the process will have
heart. _You_ can only be "real" on your path. The hardest thing in the
world is to be something you're not.
"Here's me. Takes me for what I am with all my frailties, all my
stupidity, and so on. And if you can't, leave me be. (Don't try to change me)
He (man) is still the creator of his own destiny. He can change this
destiny by taking his one decision to change seriously, by fighting his
petty resistance against change and fear, by learning more about his
mind,...by carrying out concrete acts rather than conceptualizing about them.
WE must remind ourselves, however, that no change takes place without
working hard and without getting your hands dirty.
There is no formulae & no books to memorize on becoming. I only know
this: I exist, I am, I am here, I am becoming, I make my life & no one
makes it for me. I must face my own shortcomings, mistakes,
transgressions. No one can suffer my non-being as I do, but tomorrow is
another day, and I must decide to leave my bed and live again. And if I
fail, I don't have the comfort of blaming you or life or God.
"We are all functioning at a small fraction of our capacity to live
fully in its total meaning of loving, caring, creating and
adventuring..." - Herbert Otto
Love is a learned response, a learned emotion. God is love.
If you want to live in love, you must spend as much time as the auto
mechanic or the gourmet in studying love.
In studying love it would be well to consider the following premises:
"One cannot give what he does not possess. To give love you must possess love."
"One cannot know what he does not study. To study love you must live in love"
"One cannot have doubt about that which he wishes to trust. To trust
love you must be convinced of love."
"One cannot admit what he does not yield to, To yield to love you must
be vulnerable to love."
One cannot live what he does not dedicate himself to. To dedicate
yourself to love you must be forever growing in love."
Language is the main means by which we transfer knowledge, attitudes,
prejudices, feelings and those aspects which make personality and
culture unique.
Love As A Learned Phenomenon
It's never too late to learn anything for which you have potential. If
you want to learn to love, then you must start the process of finding
out what it is, what qualities make up a loving person and how these are
developed.
Love, especially, is learned best in wonder, in joy, in peace, in living.
Man Needs To Love And Be Loved
"Scientists are discovering at this very moment that to live as if to
live and love were one is only way of life for human beings, because,
indeed, _this is the way of life which the innate nature of man
demands_." - Ashley Montagu
One can be alone & never feel loneliness and, conversely, one can even
feel lonely even when he is among people. ... Albert Schweitzer stressed
this poignantly in his comment that modern man is so much a part of the
crowd that he is dying of personal loneliness.
He discovers that with each deep relationship he's brought closer to
himself, that others help him to gain personal strength and this
strength, in turn, makes it more possible for him to face his aloneness.
In adulthood, we find that the easiest way of being accepted is to be
like those by whom we wish to be accepted. So we conform.
We need others. WE need others to love and we need to be loved by them.
_There is no doubt that without it er too, like the infant left alone,
would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness & even death._
........continued in part two.........